Last time, we explored Russia’s 1905 crisis and revolution, specifically focusing on its specificity: the power of the Petrograd soviet. We ended by saying that social revolt had calmed for multiple reasons, the most important of which was the cancelling of the annual redemptive payments from the 1861 reform and the excellent harvests of 1908-1909. This time, we will delve into the heart of the Beast: Russia, 1917, and the rebirth of the institution that will define the 20th century.

On January 22nd 1905, on a Sunday, the priest Georgy Gapon is leading around a dozen thousand unarmed protesters to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. At this point, workers are living in the difficulties we’ve previously described, but the Tsar is still seen by most as the father of Russian people. In this sense, the political consciousness of the workers is very minimally, if at all, developed: they mostly demand better wages and working conditions. There have been a few strikes before 1905, but these movements were rapidly and violently repressed, strike funds were illegal, and mutual aid funds were barely tolerated: whenever industrial entrepreneurs accepted negotiations, they received worker delegates, but as soon as negotiations were done, the delegates were fired and often even arrested.

Still they came to the Tsar, hoping that the father would hear out his flock. However, little time after arriving in the square of the Winter Palace, the soldiers opened fire and the cavalry charged them: from that point onward, the day would be known as Bloody Sunday.